BIG RIVER MAN - FEATURE LENGTH DOCUMENTARY

BIG RIVER MAN is an environmentally aware documentary about an eccentric, larger-than-life Slovenian extreme swimmer. In February 2007 Martin Strel began an insane attempt to be the first person to swim the entire length of the world’s most dangerous river, the Amazon.

The Fish Man, as he was called by the local tribes, almost died in the process several times. Towards the end of his marathon ordeal his blood pressure was at heart attack level, his entire body full of subcutaneous larvae and besieged by dehydration and exhaustion.

Martin is an endurance swimmer who swims rivers – the Mississippi, the Danube, Paraná and the Yangtze prior to the Amazon – to highlight their pollution to the world. During this epic journey he suffered from blisters, sunburn, exotic stomach illnesses, all the while trying to avoid piranhas, anacondas, crocodiles, alligators, river sharks, and a small parasitic fish known as the candiru. Martin is also a rather overweight horse-burger loving Slovenian in his fifties, who drinks bottles of red wine to get extra power...even when swimming.

Martin serves as a metaphor for the "Everyman", and prove, once and for all, that one man can make a difference.